New Joe Pug Music On The Way

Last year I found myself drawn in by new singer songwriter Joe Pug.

Maybe I just like to root for the little guy- who works with his hands during the day and records late at night.

Could be that I appreciate  his ties to the Triangle as a former UNC playwriting major.

Or the fact that he built a fan base by playing live constantly and giving his music away for free.

Perhaps I’m just a sucker for a blue-collar voice and lyrical lyrics.

Whatever the case- I like Joe Pug.

And he’s got new music dropping in just a few weeks on 2/16.

You can hear 2 new songs- “Messenger” and “Unsophisticated Heart” – on his MYSPACE player right now.

Or check out the video below:

Ready To De-Clutter???

This time of year, many of us create a list of things we intend to do to make our life better/easier/simpler/etc.

Often, de-cluttering (or one of its aliases) is on our docket.

It isn’t just our cars,hard-drives, work spaces and kitchen counters that need to be purged.

Our souls could use a bit of de-cluttering too.

And that was the topic of our faith community’s teaching conversation today.

If you’re interested, you can listen in HERE

Envision Changes in 2010?

Check out this good reminder (courtesy of Donald Miller & Dr. Henry Cloud) about the importance of patience and process when seeking growth.

And be sure and listen for the stat on how much of our sense of well being is actually improved by a change of our circumstances.  It blew me away.

Sending Me A Message???

Got back to my car after lunch today only to find that the birds had left me this present:

I’m not sure exactly what they are trying to tell me, but here are a few of the possibilities I’ve worked out so far:

• “You’re parked in our space.  Don’t let it happen again.”
• “Your teaching this morning needed some more work.”
• “Happy New Year!  Now go wash your car.”
• “We think we got food poisoning at the Mongolian Grill next door.”

Let me just say for the record that I am sorry to the large flock of birds with loose bowels and great aim.

Whatever I did won’t happen again.

Santa! We saw him!!

The kids have really enjoyed the Christmas season so far.  Yesterday we made our annual trek to see Santa.

We had to wait two hours, but the kids were amazingly patient and had a good interaction with St. Nick.  Colston gave him a sweet, huge hug and petted his beard.  Addy asked her long awaited question about whether or not Rudolph was real and was glad to hear that not only was he real- but that he had been playing in the snow last night.

I’ve included a few shots of us decorating our tree here as well.  Hope you and your family have a relaxing and meaningful Christmas!

Fall Recap Part 2

We also partook in the final day of October festivities, complete with pumpkin mutilation, cookie making and candy collecting.

Fall Recap Part 1

Just finished downloading some Christmas pictures to my computer and I realized that we had a bunch of pictures from the fall that have never seen the light of day.  Thought I’d post some here before Christmas officially arrived.

Back in October we took the kids to a local farm for a few hours of fall fun- corn mazing, atv riding, hay bale scaling, etc.  Here’s the pictoral proof:

What Is Your Best Repeat Jam??

It’s that time of year when people start rolling out their “best” music lists.

These canons are sometimes lengthy, with anywhere from 10-100 entries.  And the criteria used to compile them is varied and complex.

I’m looking for something quite a bit simpler than that.

One song, album or artist with one qualification.

When you want to leave music on in the background to repeat while you work, create, think, cook, sleep, play, etc.- what’s your go to song, album or band?

Lately for me it’s been “Ain’t No Sunshine” by Bill Withers.  Although it’s 38 years old, and barely 2 minutes long, I can literally let it repeat for hours.

If you aren’t familiar with the song, or wonder how I’ve got a play count numbering in the hundreds on a tune that I’ve only owned a few weeks, take a listen below.

Now how about you?  What do you press the repeat button on?

Astronomical Perspective

Lately I’ve been chewing on the idea that gratitude comes from perspective.  We often don’t appreciate how good things are in our lives until we zoom out a bit and see what others are dealing with.  We may feel dissatisfied with our career path until we hear from a buddy who got laid off unexpectedly and suddenly our job seems OK.  We may feel under the weather with the latest bug, and then we hear about a loved one who has cancer and the flu virus isn’t quite so overwhelming anymore.  We may bemoan not being able to do all the things for our family that we’d like to do.  Then we find out our neighbor is facing foreclosure and we’re grateful that we can pay the house payment each month.  The more we see beyond ourselves, the more grateful we are likely to become.

This Sunday our church community tried to take that to another level.  Instead of simply trying to adopt a more global perspective, we tried to think universally.  (And I’m not talking about health care.)  We wanted to gain some perspective on just how big and glorious this God of ours is.  And we got some help from both the scripture and astronomy.

¹ The heavens declare the glory of God,

and the sky displays what his hands have made.

² One day tells a story to the next.

One night shares knowledge with the next

³ without talking,

without words,

without their voices being heard.

⁴ {Yet,} their sound has gone out into the entire world,

their message to the ends of the earth.

Psalm 19:1-4a

We also got a great assist from Louie Giglio’s “Indescribable” video.   You can watch part 1 here and find the other parts in related videos if you are interested.

While we tend to see ourselves as the center of the planet and our planet as the center of the universe- this video contains some thoughts that are perspective changers- about how big God is, how small we are and how Jesus’ love bridges the distance between us.

So if you’ve been feeling overwhelmed by all that is going on in your life or think your picture of God might be too small, take the time to check out this teaching.  I think you’ll be encouraged and have your perspective stretched in an astronomical way.

Do Something Spiritual….Eat!

Could engaging with God be as simple as enjoying dessert?

You bet.

Last Sunday our church community explored the power of food to help us connect with our Creator.

Want to know more?  Listen in HERE.